Hawaii: Decades of Neglect and a Systemic Child Welfare Crisis

Hawaii’s child welfare system has been in and out of crisis for decades, failing to protect some of its most vulnerable residents. While foster care systems claim to protect children across the state, they are instead re-abusing them, subjecting these children to horrifying rates of sexual abuse and physical abuse. Hawaii’s systemic issues that allow foster children to be sexually and physically abused demonstrate a broader national reality: foster care is a failed human experiment on these kids, and Hawaii’s historical legal battles highlight these ongoing, active dangers. As one of the states entangled in class-action litigation for many years, Hawaii’s Sheehey et al. v. Bhanot lawsuit highlights these ongoing, active dangers. Children should not be removed from their natural parents who are their main source of safety, stability, and protection without substantial danger and compelling evidence for removal.

“He lei poina ʻole ke keiki.” (A beloved child is a lei never forgotten).

As child welfare advocates, Justice for Kids® continues to protect foster children in Hawaii by filing personal injury and damage claims with qualified licensed attorneys from Hawaii. Justice for Kids® refuses to be silent.

Every case below is part of one continuous legal fight: holding  South Dakota’s child welfare system to the constitutional standard it has repeatedly failed to meet.

We connect families with licensed Hawaii attorneys who handle personal injury and damage claims on behalf of children abused in state custody — at no upfront cost to you.

Even with the Ah Chong settlement, Hawaii’s enormous child welfare failures to act on “red flag” warnings continues to put defenseless children in a position of systemic physical abuse, unchecked emotional abuse, and fatal neglect, resulting in severe personal injury and irreversible psychological damage. When the system fails to provide stable, community-based care and pushes kids with disabilities into institutions, they suffer deep trauma, missing out on normal childhood experiences, falling behind in school, and facing severe mental health crises without the right support.

On February 14, 2024, CWS received a hotline report explicitly warning that the children had been abruptly removed from school, appeared unwashed, and were visibly losing weight. Representatives from Parents and Children Together (PACT) were directly informed by telephone on March 5, 2024 regarding the severe deterioration of the children’s physical condition. However, instead of removing the children, CWS closed the investigation in April 2024. On May 23 and 26, 2024, family members raised concerns about the children’s wellbeing to PACT representatives two more times. The state took no action, leaving the children in the home without adequate supervision or protective services. On June 13, 2024, emergency responders were called to the home and found 3-year-old Sarai unresponsive, severely malnourished, and covered in bruises at various stages of healing. She was pronounced dead 18 minutes after arriving at the hospital. Only after Sarai’s death did the state finally remove the surviving siblings, who were immediately hospitalized for severe dehydration, profound thinness, and physical trauma. Experts say Sarai had been deprived of food, clothing, medical care, and education, exposed to severe domestic violence, and even given dangerous drugs prior to her death.

Litigation in Hawaii reveals a system that is so overburdened and poorly maintained that it frequently fails to secure timely permanency, protect children from abuse, or provide safe placements. This systemic disregard for foster children’s basic rights in Hawaii reflects the country’s national crisis, where foster care placements put our youth in danger rather than peace. approximately 20,000 youth who age out of the foster care system annually across the country, representing about 10% of the older foster care population. National data from Casey Family Programs shows the many harms the foster care system imposes on children, including educational neglect. Foster children are disproportionately likely to fall behind on education, with only 55%-56% graduating high school compared to over 83% of their statewide peers, and just 3% to 12% ever attaining a four-year college degree. Vulnerable foster youth that are left to grow up alone in institutional isolation face incessant trauma instead of strong family bonds and are thereby led into adulthood entirely unprotected.